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Embedding Climate Governance in Environmental Codification: China’s Administrative Integration Model

Wenyi Li, Yike Zuo

Advance in Law / 2026,8(2): 55-89 / 2026-06-05 11 10

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• Information:

  School of Law, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu, China

• Keywords:
  Ecological and Environmental Code of the People’s Republic of China; Climate Governance Integration; Administrative Dominance; Pollution-Carbon Synergy; Comparative Environmental Law; Environmental Codification
• Abstract: The institutional design of climate governance is a central challenge in contemporary environmental law. A persistent coordination deficit between stand-alone climate legislation and traditional administrative environmental codes has produced normative fragmentation, structurally decoupling pollution reduction from carbon mitigation. This decoupling manifests not only in the incompatibility of regulatory instruments and legal principles, but also in fractures among governance objectives, enforcement mechanisms, and liability systems. Ecological and Environmental Code of the People’s Republic of China (Ecological and Environmental Code) charts a distinctive institutional response: rather than a stand-alone climate statute, it embeds climate governance objectives within an administratively anchored unified legal framework. This article develops “codified climate governance integration” to explain how, under a “moderate codification” model, the Ecological and Environmental Code embeds climate objectives within existing pollution prevention law through three mechanisms: the structural elevation of a dedicated “Green and Low-Carbon Development” book, granting climate governance independent normative status; the functional expansion of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) to incorporate carbon emission impact assessment, making carbon emissions a binding constraint on project access; and transforming pollutant discharge permit system to encompass carbon constraints, enabling unified regulation of stationary sources. In contrast to the European Union’s climate constitutionalism pathway, centered on judicially enforceable rights and market mechanisms, China’s model exhibits an “embedded integration” logic sustained by the target responsibility system and central ecological and environmental protection inspection. This logic does not rely on external judicial review but, through internal administrative mechanisms such as performance evaluation, political accountability, and cross-level supervision, transmits national climate targets stepwise to local governments and specific project implementation. This constitutes a structurally distinctive governance paradigm offering institutionally replicable lessons for developing economies, and contributes to emerging scholarly debate on governance pluralism in global climate law. The paradigm demonstrates that, in the absence of mature market institutions and a highly independent judiciary, an administratively led integration pathway can still produce enforceable and accountable climate governance outcomes.
• DOI: 10.35534/al.0802006 (registering DOI)
• Cite: Li, W. Y., & Zuo, Y. K. (2026). Embedding Climate Governance in Environmental Codification: China’s Administrative Integration Model. Advance in Law, 8(2), 55-89.